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Our first visitor was our dear friend Mo. Mo and I met through a mutual friend Joy originally in 2008, and then solidified our friendship through the Basic and Intermediate Climbing classes with the Tacoma Mountaineers. 

We’ve had so many adventures together in the mountains, rock climbs, glacier climbs, alpine climbs. And after having kids, we continue to have adventures outdoors camping and climbing: celebrating my 40th in Yosemite, annual rock climbing trips to Squamish, and many others. Mo is Jade’s godparent, and our kids love Tíe Mo dearly.

Being our first visitor, Mo schlepped so much stuff for us! They brought 2 huge duffles of our camping gear and other miscellaneous needed items. Muchísimas gracias Tíe Mo!

Mo and Tomu often went to the park to play soccer in the evenings. They walked across the street, hand in hand. Mo loves tropical fruit, and they went with Riki to the grocery store and came back with all sorts of mystery fruit, as Mo says. Tomu loved trying the fruit with Mo; he would say, can we open a mystery today?

Turns out Tíe Mo is a great storyteller, and they would often do bedtime duty with a story. They taught Jadie not to wiggle when you are snuggling, you have to be still.

Mo arrived in time for Riki’s birthday, which we celebrated with a fun museum visit, bike ride home in the heavy rain, (I like wet booties!) and an exquisite 6 course meal at Yasu’s. Yasu is a Japanese chef who worked in NYC for 20 years and has opened a restaurant in his home here in Cuenca. He serves serious gourmet food.

Next we celebrated Tomu’s 5th birthday. This time it went much smoother. We know a few more people now, so there were more folks invited. It was planned for Saturday at 2:30. Some people arrived within the first half hour, and all guests had arrived by 4:30, and everyone left by 6:30. It was a lot of fun, and Tomu was one happy birthday boy with his dinosaur piñata.

Tomu said a few weeks ago that he wanted to go to Cajas National Park the day after his birthday. So we did. We camped overnight at Toreadora Lake, elevation 12,500’. Mo, Riki, and I hiked with huge backpacks (6 sleeping bags, 6 pads, 3 tents, and lots of layers for 6 people) while Tomu & Jade carried nothing, and Luz was carried. But it was only 20 minutes or so to our camping spot. We set up camp, heated up leftovers for lunch, then set out on a 4 mile loop hike. It was stunning scenery, very stark, felt like tundra. We hiked past several lakes and through a forest of polylepis or quinua trees (they have red peely bark like madrona trees). Mo carried Luz and a fanny pack, Riki carried a big pack full of layers and snacks, and I was the official child encourager—I mostly carried Jade in an Ergo, often held Tomu’s hand, and gave Tomu two short carries in the Ergo. We had great weather, which was lucky as the weather changes quickly in Cajas. We ate dinner at the restaurant there, then walked back to our campsite. Tomu had so much energy when we got back to camp, he wanted me to play Animal Tag with him. It was a bit tricky getting Luz to sleep—I ended up walking with her in the Ergo for an hour or so, then transitioning her to her sleeping bag, then gingerly getting into mine. At 5:30 am she wouldn’t go back to sleep, so I walked for 2 hours with her until the rest of the crew woke up. It was raining as we were packing up camp, but not too hard.

eating breakfast

Luz just sat on the grass in the light rain while we packed up camp.

We did some fun sightseeing things with Tía Mo, like ride a double decker bus around town and go to the thermal hot springs, but mainly she just blended in with our regular routine here.

It’s so much easier having three adults to take care of three kids! We wish Mo could stay with us for months. But we are already hatching plans to meet in Patagonia next year…